


Antivirus

by Pathfinder (Coffeeaftermidnight)



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Everyone is Dead, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Private Investigator AU, Ten Years Later, Tim is too old for this shit, or are they...?, polyhornets - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26367430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffeeaftermidnight/pseuds/Pathfinder
Summary: Ten years ago, Jay Merrick, Brian Thomas, and Alex Kralie died, ending the events of the Marble Hornets channel. Ever since, Tim has been alone, weathering the changes of an increasingly hostile world, and an increasingly powerful Operator. Changing his name to Timothy Kane, Tim works as a private investigator locating the ones driven to flee from the Operator, traveling all over the Southeast to find and help them before they're chased into Rosswood and disappear forever.But when a wealthy widow reaches out for his help, Tim's world is rocked to its core. This woman is none other than Jay's estranged mother, and she claims to have evidence that Jay and Alex are still alive. Tim isn't convinced, but the money is good - and he needs the closure as much as she does.The path to the truth, however, isn't any less rocky than it was ten years ago. There's a mad prophet on Youtube that knows when Tim's watching. Four reckless college students prying at Tim for answers he'd never give a stranger. And worst of all, a masked maniac with a gun that will do anything to drive Tim back out of Alabama... even commit murder. Is the truth even worth finding?Original concept by @ask-me-about-my-mh-au on Tumblr.
Relationships: Alex Kralie/Timothy "Tim" Wright, Brian Thomas/Timothy "Tim" Wright, Jay Merrick/Timothy "Tim" Wright
Comments: 15
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters will be uploaded first on my Tumblr blog, @antivirus-mh-au. If you enjoy this fic, please leave kudos or a comment. Thank you!

He wrote the letter J on top of every cigarette carton he bought. Even in this half-lit patio, it was visible as he fished a cigarette out. There was only one left. Bringing the suicide stick to his mouth with one hand, Tim offered the pack to the young woman sitting on the other side of the small table. The woman hesitated, but shook her head, a hand wiping the tears away before she spoke.

“No, thank you,” she said. “Mama would kill me if she found out.”

Tim smiled, pulling the carton back.

“She misses you,” he said. “A lot.”

The young woman - a runaway, her name was Becca - looked down at the plastic table that sat between them.

“I can’t believe she did all this,” Becca said, her brown eyes watering again. “I can’t believe she did all this research… to find you, and… And actually pay for someone to…”

“My rates are good,” he said. “And there’s always business. You’re not alone in this. You never were.”

She swallowed, looking back at him through dark hair once dyed a vibrant gold. “So you’re sure…” Becca reached out for the bottle of pills on the table. “These pills, they’ll keep it away?”

“They did for me,” Tim said. “And they’ve done it for every person I’ve helped get prescribed to them.”

Her gaze turned away from the label on the orange bottle, back to him.

“I thought just meeting you could drive it away,” she said. “That’s what they all say online.”

Tim looked away, taking the time to light the cigarette. He inhaled death and blew out life as smoke, the hot Lousianna breeze carrying it far away. Shoving the lighter back into a pocket on his leather jacket, he looked back at the woman.

“Maybe I can,” he said. “Maybe it does avoid me. But do you want to take the chance and be wrong?”

Becca shuddered. “No. God, no. If these will stop the nightmares, I’ll take them all.”

He looked up at the sky, where the night sky struggled to show the stars above this generic rest stop of a small town. Three am and still the cars drove by past this motel, a river of molded metal and paint and plastic. Who knew where they were going. Who cared, either.

Tim exhaled. “You going to go back home?”

She swallowed, staring at the bottle in her hands. 

“Is it really gone?” Becca asked.

Tim looked at her the same way he looked at all the other people he’d helped the past eight years.

“Yeah,” He promised. “It’s gone.”

Becca moved to rub her wet eyes again, but froze midway.

“Lukas,” she said.

Tim’s blood ran cold. He knew where this was going already.

“Lukas?” 

“My friend. We’ve been riding together. He’s - he’s seen it too.” She looked between the bottle of pills and Tim, staring at her from across the table. “He left an hour ago. I need to text him and-”

“Stop.” Tim straightened. “Where was he going?”

“An - an old playground, it’s by this elementary school they don’t use anymore. He left his backpack there and-”

“Damn it,” Tim hissed. He threw the cigarette at his feet and ground the fire from it. “I’ll be - no.” He yanked the business card from another pocket on his jacket, followed by a pen. The name on the card read Timothy Kane for all to see. He handed them both to her. “Write down your phone number and the address of this school. I’ll call you when I find him.”

Becca scrambled for the pen, her fingers shaking. 

“You don’t think.... He’s hurt? Do you?”

He took the business card but not the pen. He had more in his van.

“I’m going to find out,” Tim said.

In his van, he hit the steering wheel as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“Knew I was coming, didn’t you?” He said to the air. The disease didn’t, couldn’t, hear him. But that didn’t matter.

The Lukas guy had been gone for an hour, god knew what he’d gone through. He could be dead. Hurt. Had his brain scrambled like an egg, until he talked like a five year old and didn’t recognize his own mother. Did Lukas even have a mother? 

Focus, focus. Tim caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowed in the night. Focus,  _ focus _ . He had a reputation to uphold. He had a standard. Tim Wright failed. Timothy Kane didn’t.

  
  
  


Someone had peeled the letters off the sign in front of the school. Kudzu and weeds swallowed the brick sign, cracking the fake marble and digging into the darkness inside. The parking lot behind it crunched under his tires, old dandelions flattening under his vehicle. Tim grabbed the flashlight from the passenger's seat before he left. There was no light for miles here, except for him.

Bugs swirled in the beam from his flashlight. Hot air flowed into his lungs. Sweat cooled on the back of his neck. Old gravel scraped under his boots. The rusted gate around the property lay on the ground with the weeds, and the metal barely squeaked when he walked over it. In front of him, the overgrowth choked the school entrance, plants falling over themselves to crush the brick and stone to dust. The front doors were gone. Tim stepped through.

They probably told ghost stories about this place, not that it kept the kids away. The fading murals on the wall were covered with graffiti, the glass wall that separated the front office from the entryway shattered, catching the light in every direction. What was probably a library stretched out on the far left side, the remaining bookshelves full of dust and cobwebs. On the right, a staircase, and open corridors that stretched into the darkness.

Tim exhaled.

“Where are you?” He whispered.

Someone screamed. His grip tightened on the flashlight. That was quick. Tim charged into the darkness.

“Leave me alone!” It must’ve been Lukas screaming. It found him first. 

“Go away! It hurts! Stop it!”

He followed the scream past the old murals and graffiti, past the crossed out circles on the wall. The static rubbed against his skin, like touching an old television. He was getting closer.

“Stop! Stop!”

Auditorium. Probably the biggest room in the building. The roof caved in on the far side, exposing the already fading room to the light. Across from the door was a staircase with broken railings, and next to it… was It.

It hadn’t seen him, but It had to know he was here, watching It. After all these years, It never changed, Its appearance immortal, eternal, while he aged with life’s painful slowness. His heart still clenched when he saw It. His veins still chilled in Its presence. It didn’t look at him. The featureless head focused on the ground, at the man that writhed at Its feet. Tim inhaled, and stepped forwards.

Was it just him, that the air was colder now? Was it just him, that he could hear static ringing through his ears? His mouth dried, his heart shuddered. Human instinct demanded he run, but every step he took brought him closer to It. And even though every part of his body screamed, Tim wasn’t afraid. He’d lost that part of himself after doing this so long. 

The words came from his mouth.

"Hey!"

There was no change, no reaction from the one on the floor, but the flat, vacant head moved. It turned, slowly, slowly, the suited body twisting towards the one that called out. It didn't have eyes but It looked back at him. It didn't have eyes, but It met his gaze.

Tim looked back.

"He's not yours," he said. "Leave him alone."

On the floor Lukas screamed, his hands wrapped around his head. He was shaking, he was crying in pain or fear. His leg was twisted the wrong way. But the Operator didn't move. It looked at Tim. It stood, and looked at him, as if It understood him. It tilted Its head. And with a feeling like emerging from deep underwater, it was gone. Tim gasped for air as if he'd surfaced.

Lukas stopped screaming. Tim, eyes wide, panting, looked at the man on the floor. The man looked back through teary eyes, his chest heaving with air.

"Christ," Tim said.

"Tim Wright?" Lukas asked.

"Timothy Kane." Tim stepped forward. "Becca's mother sent me."

"For real?" Lukas sucked in air, and coughed.

Tim kneeled down, looking the younger man over. "Your leg is broken," he said.

"The railing broke," Lukas said. "I was running from that thing-"

"You should've never come here alone," Tim said. He reached for the backpack near the twisted leg. "First rule of exploring abandoned buildings."

Lukas cringed. "Sorry."

Shaking his head, Tim offered his hand. "I can get you to my car and take you to the hospital. We'll call Becca and get you both on medication so this won't happen again."

The younger man breathed in, staring up at Tim with wide, exhausted eyes.

"You're real," Lukas said. "Everybody said you're just something people made up."

Tim shrugged, his mind drifting back towards the cigarette pack in his jacket. Once he got done here, he'd have to buy more.

"They say that about the Operator, too."

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

He blew the smoke from his mouth around the cigarette, the morning sun catching all the particles as they floated into the air. Tim drew the J on top of the fresh carton and dropped the pen onto the dashboard. Pulling the cigarette from his mouth, he drew in a deep breath of fresh air, fresh as you could get at a gas station by a highway. Looking around the parking lot, at the people filing in and out, he shook his head and gave a wry smile. Hard not to be in a good mood when you got some decent sleep for once.

Becca and Lukas were okay. Lukas's leg had been taken care of, and the two had set back off for Idaho, back to the families that loved them. Another success case for Timothy Kane. Another group of people adding to the myth of his existence. Seemed like every month there were more of them. The Operator never tired. The sickness never eased. In fact, it only grew worse.

But like hell was he going to start off a good morning with that depressing shit. He'd gotten paid, gotten rest, and he'd found out where the nearest library was with free internet. He was not going to let a rare moment of peace escape him. He'd lost too much for that.

The library wasn't far away from the gas station he'd refilled at. By the time he pulled into the parking lot, it was open, as were the windows on the front of the building. He spoke briefly to the clerk at the front desk, making sure he understood their internet rules and that it was okay for him to bring in his thermos of coffee, before finding a convenient spot by a power outlet. 

His laptop was getting old, it took a while for it to boot up. As Tim waited, he thumbed through a newspaper. Experts predicting a war with China for the third time in as many years, conflict in the Middle East, the royal family in Britain getting roped into some scandal or another. That was why he didn't read the news much, it was always the same. By the time he got to the comics (never his favorite part of the newspaper), his laptop had finished, and Tim traded the two without a second thought.

He could and did check his email on his phone but he was old-fashioned and preferred to use his laptop when he had the chance. Earlier Becca's mother replied to his report about her daughter returning home, a message he'd saved in a special folder he looked at when he felt particularly shitty. 

Another email was waiting for him now, from a 'Meridith Frederickson'. Another client, looking for her son and his missing best friend. He replied to that one, offering to schedule a Zoom meeting later that same day. By now he knew all too well what happened if he wasn't on top of his cases. 

And of course, he had new messages in the spam folder. Tim glanced over the subjects of the emails without opening any of them. Some didn't have any, but most were vaguely threatening, the kind he usually got from trolls and kids. 'Always watching', 'there's no escape', 'how could you', and on and on and on. People thought they could get a rise out of him by acting like totheark, but none of them even came close to what Brian had been all those years ago. 

Tim glanced at the tab next to his email, frowning. There was no sense in trying to put it off, even if he hated doing it. Everything on that site made him feel worse, and today had been a pretty good day. But if he didn't look, he'd regret it later, falling into a rabbit hole of updates that was guaranteed to fuck him over. So he opened YouTube.

The videos were taken down years ago, the channels involved with Marble Hornets wiped from the website. But that didn't mean they were gone, just hidden away on Google Drives and shock sites. What was on YouTube was... the fandom.

It made his skin crawl thinking about it. People from all over the world were obsessed with what he and Jay had been through. He'd seen hundreds of articles about the videos, from five minute listicles to long analysises about the events and the people involved. He'd seen other things, too, things he'd rather not remember. Like the fanart...

Out of everything, though, it was the YouTube community that unsettled him the most. The passionate, wide eyed college kids. The naive high schoolers. The older people, with their backgrounds in criminal science and forensics and cryptids and God knew what else. They picked over the videos and tweets and codes like vultures at a pile of bones. Like it was just a fictional web series, like people he knew and once liked weren't dead. And they spread the disease. It didn't take all of them, leaving the YouTubers alone, but claiming their followers. It made him sick thinking about all the people he couldn't save, the people who had no one left to try and find them, the people who vanished into Rosswood Park and were never seen again. It made him sick, watching these ignorant people talk about his pain as if they were all insects under microscopes.

But if he didn't pay attention, who knew what might happen. The Operator was watching all of them. One slip up was all it took.

He scrolled through both the front page and his subscriptions. The videos were, in the end, all the same. Speculation, discussion, analyzation. Some of them he could watch later. Others needed his attention now.

Tim’s eyes landed on a video, and his heart clenched. The Neophyte was streaming again.

The still image didn’t show much. Neophyte_Calling didn’t put much work into his channel. It was just a shot of what the streams normally showed, pale, unkempt hands poking free from black robes, resting on an old plastic table. That was what he expected to find once he opened the stream.

And he’d be correct, that was what awaited him once he got the courage to click. The hands twitched and clenched and dug at the table. It wasn’t the hands that were special though, it was what the owner of those hands were saying.

“Autumn after firestorm, the nights don’t listen and the butter is on the corn. Ten days or twenty paces of living guts wrapped around an old man’s neck. The water comes up to your waist but you don’t feel the attitude of denial inside the bastard daughter’s heart. Oh, god, eureka, industry was never so smooth…”

Complete nonsense. The ramblings of a man on some kind of drug, or lost to some unknown mental illness. Despite this, the chat flooded with messages. Donations popped up occasionally, attempts to get the Neophyte’s attention. He didn’t notice. He never noticed. He just kept talking. And he would keep talking until the stream ended on its own, or he passed out on the table.

People called him a prophet. Claimed every word he spoke had a double, or even a triple, meaning. They recorded every word he said and discussed them among themselves, coming up with ‘translations’ for his maddening dialogue. And to be fair, they could have a point. Sometimes, what the Neophyte said did seem to foretell events that happened not long after he spoke them. But the god the Neophyte channeled was not one Tim would ever ask someone to worship.

Silence. The man stopped talking, his fidgeting hands resting flat on the table. Dread filled Tim’s body. Speak of the devil, he was doing this again?

The Neophyte spoke again, his voice deeper now. The words came clumsy from his mouth, uncomfortable, heavy, as if he had never spoken before. The emphasis, the tone, it was all wrong. Tim had no trouble understanding them, however.

“You always fight,” It said through the Neophyte’s mouth. “You always resist. You tire, and exhaust, and fall. You continue to fight despite.”

The robes shifted, the head hidden from the camera’s view tilting.

“Tim,” It said. “You are a grain of sand. I am eternal. I am here. I will always be here. You understand. You continue despite.”

On the side of the screen, the chat surged with messages. It raced so quickly, Tim couldn’t have read any of them even if he tried. He didn’t look away from the livestream. 

“Tim,” It said again. “Enough. You have fought hard. You are getting old. That’s enough. It’s time to come home. To us. To all of us.”

The hair stood up on his arms, on the back of Tim’s neck. He shuddered.

“Like hell,” he whispered, and closed the tab.

But even though he closed the livestream, he could swear he heard the Neophyte, the thing puppeting him, whisper in his mind.

_ “Coward.” _

  
  
  
  


When 2pm rolled around, Tim was back in his van in the library parking lot. Obviously he couldn’t do a Zoom call inside the quiet space, but their internet reached well past the parking lot. He sat on his bed, now folded up like a couch inside the converted van he lived in. His laptop open before him, the program open and ready. Now he just had to wait for her.

Hard to say what this Meredith Fredrickson would expect a private investigator like him to look like, but Tim did his best to look presentable anyway. Hair combed, beard trimmed, leather jacket kept to the side out of her line of sight - leather jackets weren’t worn by authority figures, and that was what he was trying to be right now. Not anyone could do this job, but who’s to say she knew that? If she didn’t like the way he looked, she could try to find someone else to find her son and his friend. And if she did that, by the time she realized only Tim could help her, it would be too late.

Thinking about it that way made him shudder.

Of course, while he was prepared to deal with what she thought he would look like, he wasn’t as ready for what she herself would look like. As the call began, and Meredith’s face came on screen, Tim hesitated. He looked at her closely again. Had he seen this woman before?

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fredrickson,” He greeted.

The woman shook her head, her curly brown hair tossing around her slim shoulders.

“Meredith is fine,” she said. “I haven’t been called ‘Mrs’ since my husband died. I changed back to my maiden name - my son’s last name will be his, not mine.”

“Of course,” Tim said. Odd information to include, but people tended to ramble when they were nervous.

He looked at her again, at the frown lines developing around her lips, and the worry and pain in her wide-set eyes. Behind her was a normal looking home, a few windows with pale curtains, a kitchen kept clean from what little he saw. Something was nagging at him. What was it?

“Did you fill out the information packet I requested?” He asked.

Meredith nodded.

“Yes.”

The file appeared, Tim half-listening to her as he opened it.

“I know this is a very strange thing to ask from you,” Meredith said. “But circumstances have changed in a way I really didn’t expect. I know it’s hard to believe that after ten years my son could be alive, but I don’t have any other explanation for…”

She trailed off. Tim didn’t look away from the document she’d sent. The names written on the very first line.

_ Missing People: Jay Merrick and Alex Kralie _

Motherfucker, had he been tricked?

Tim shot the woman a sharp glance, examining her expression in seconds. She was not the first person to ask him to track down Jay and Alex, but she was the first he hadn’t screened out before it got this far. Most people were upfront about their intentions, or were obviously trolling, or he otherwise got weird vibes from them. This Meredith had slipped him by, and wasted his time in the process.

“He is my son,” Meredith said. “I’ve included his birth certificate, since I thought you might not believe me.”

“I don’t need it.” A birth certificate? Those weren’t easy to fake, but Tim was no expert on Photoshop either. 

“I would’ve included Alex’s, too,” Meredith continued. “After all the years he and Jay knew each other, you would’ve thought I’d have it too.” She laughed, and there was pain within it. “But his parents died in a car accident about six years back, and…”

“Wait.” Tim refocused. “Alex and Jay knew each other?”

“Since the first year of middle school,” Meredith said with a nod. “I have a lot of photos of them. You know, Jay went through a phase, where he wore all black, and listened to rock music with singers I couldn’t understand. He got a tattoo of one of the bands on his ankle behind my back. I was so angry...”

She laughed again, and her eyes went distant. Tim stared at her, his mind flashing back to all the conversations he’d had with Jay, things that didn’t go into the videos. Being Alex’s childhood friend, since middle school - the phases he went through as a teen - that damn tattoo he was so embarrassed of. None of these were known by the fandom.

Oh god, this woman was the real deal. Even her face, now that he looked at her, was just like Jay’s. The distant look in her eyes as she thought… Jay got that same expression.

“Meredith,” he said, his voice softer, kinder. “Do you know about Marble Hornets?”

“I can’t bring myself to watch them,” she said. Meredith folded her hands together. “But I know what… what was shown on the videos. I know that they are…” She swallowed. “Considered dead by most people. I was one of them.”

His gut twisted. By most people, including her. “But something… changed.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and moved to wipe her eyes. “I got a package in the mail about a week ago. Inside was a flashdrive and a few printed photos. It had been placed in my mailbox - I don’t know who sent it.”

Oh no, Tim thought. Not this again. Please, don’t play this game with people again.

“What were the photos?” He asked, aware of the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

“I’ve included most of them in the document,” Meredith said. “I… I still can’t believe what I’ve seen, but… But they don’t look like they could’ve been faked.”

Dread pressed down on his shoulders. Dread and something else, some kind of energy buzzing through his nerves. Tim looked at the document, scrolled down, and opened the photos.

Some were blurry, taken from a distance and zoomed in before being printed. Some were clear as glass. It took him several seconds to process what he was seeing, what the subjects of the photos were. Tim blinked, looked again, and his pulse quickened.

Alex, standing on a street corner, gray in his hair, exhaustion on his face. Jay in a dark cloth jacket with a hood, looking over his shoulders. Alex, and Jay, Alex, and Jay, in all the photos, in every single one. The clothes were different, the faces aged, but there was no denying what he was seeing, and like Meredith said, no way to fake what he was looking at.

“Oh my god,” Tim mumbled.

Jay and Alex were alive.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Discussion of homophobia, gay angst [very gay angst]
> 
> The ending is one of the most intense things I've written in a long time.

He could already tell sleep wasn’t happening tonight.

Tim sat with his legs dangling out the side doors of his van. His fingers ached for a second cigarette, but he’d reached his personal limit for the night. If he smoked again, he’d run out before dawn, and that was as bad for his health as rescuing people. He was the prize of a race between death by cancer and the Operator. However his life ended, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

He’d parked in the outer edges of a Walmart. If he’d planned on sleeping, he would’ve gone inside, bought a few things, let the manager know he was hanging around for the night. But this was just another stop in a road trip that never ended. One way or another, tonight he’d get back on the road, and drive until his body had enough.

But where would he go? Up north, or east, towards Alabama?

He took off his glasses and rubbed the space between his eyes. Most people didn’t know he wore contacts, but then again, most people didn’t stick around long enough in his life to ask. The last time anyone actually found out was Jay. The look on his face when he saw Tim in glasses… Even now, Tim’s face broke into a smile at the memory.

Jay… Tim put his glasses back on. Picking up the tablet sitting next to him, Tim flipped through a few apps he’d left open until he got to the one he wanted. He glanced up, eyes scanning the parking lot. In the distance, someone laughed, a car door slammed, people walked back to their cars with their carts full of bags. Tim looked back to the photos.

Meredith had sent all of them, so she said. Said there might be more on the flash drive she was sent, but she wasn’t comfortable connecting it to her computer and finding out. Once he found a spot to claim as his headquarters, he’d have her send it to him. But there were enough photos to prove the sender’s point. Enough to make him feel sick to his stomach.

They were taken from a distance, some zoomed in by the taker, stalker style. Probably on a phone of some kind. He wasn’t an expert in analyzing photos and he didn’t have anyone that could help with that. Didn’t matter, the content was clear enough.

Alex standing at a crosswalk, one hand on the strap of his backpack slung over his shoulder. Alex sitting on a park bench, his eyes closed in pain or sorrow. Alex in front of a row of canned soup, looking almost confused. A little older, a little thinner, gray hair on his temples and stubble coating his chin, but it was Alex. It could only be Alex.

None of the photos gave a clear look at Alex’s neck. Should he be grateful for that?

So… somehow, Alex… Survive wasn’t the word. Tim felt the life going out of Alex that miserable day, felt his heart stop pumping and saw the eyes behind the glasses glaze over in death. There was no surviving that. Unless he’d hallucinated the whole thing, but, no, he wasn’t going to consider that. He’d killed Alex. He’d  _ murdered  _ Alex. And now, he was alive again.

Tim shuddered. Could It have done this? The Operator was powerful beyond belief, but did It have control over life and death?

Mysteries of how he came back aside, it was definitely Alex in the photos. The ones supposedly showing Jay, though...

He looked at all of them. Really, he stared at all of them, lingering over the slightly grainy photos. They were taken just like the ones of Alex, but somehow, they felt even more… secretive. As if the photographer tried to hide instead of being subtle about what they were doing. They were clear enough, though.

Clear enough to convince Tim it wasn’t Jay.

Jay was untouched. The same weight, the same hair, the same face, without grays or wrinkles. A man in his youth, the so-called prime of his life, somewhere in his mid-twenties. The clothes were different, his green jacket replaced by a black one, his hat gone from his head. And no cameras.

… He looked… happy. Even in the pictures he wasn’t smiling in, the light shone out through his eyes. His clothes were often wrinkled or dirty, his shoes old or secondhand, but it didn't seem to matter to him. Jay stood without tension in his body, arms loose, head held high. As if nothing had ever happened to him. As if he hadn't bled out slowly in an abandoned building, all alone.

Tim twisted around and reached, setting the tablet on the small table that folded out from the walls of his van. Turning his back on the night, he crawled inside his home and slammed the doors shut behind him.

Modifying this van had taken him years, working on and off in between cases. Now it was a pretty comfortable place to live. A kitchen with fridge, range and sink, a bed that folded out into a couch, a small table, and all the storage space he could need, not that he needed much. It would fit two people comfortably, but he didn't need it to take care of anyone but himself.

Next to his tablet was a book he'd bought from the library he'd visited earlier in the day, some cheap fiction novel. Tim had both bookmarks inside it, waiting to be read when he had the time. Like now. Sitting down on the couch, he opened to the first page, but his mind drifted.

"I wasn't as good a mother to him as I should've been," Meredith had said. "My love had limits, even though I didn't know it at the time."

He was used to this, the painful stories told without him asking for them. Being the last resort for a lot of loved ones, they treated him like a confidant as much as a private investigator. They needed to talk about it. They needed someone to tell them it would be okay. Tim was okay being that person, but it was different when he knew the missing people himself.

But Meredith didn't know that.

"I know it seems impossible," she'd said, "but I'd recognize Jay and Alex no matter what disguise they wore. They were both my sons. It's definitely them in the photos. It can't be anyone but them."

"Mrs. Frederickson," he'd started, but his first sentence died on his lips. "I have no reason to doubt you," he lied, "but why do you think this is something I can help you with?"

Meredith inhaled. "No one else will take this job. I tried five different companies. They refused because of the infamy of the Marble Hornets videos. And the note in the package…"

She looked down, bit her lip, just like Jay did ten years before.

"It said you were the only one that could help."

Tim blinked the memories away. He glanced at the book in his hands, and tossed it aside. Reading wasn't happening tonight. Sleeping wasn't happening tonight. What  _ was _ going to happen tonight?

Outside the van, the trees shifted in the hot Louisiana wind. Cars cruised the highway. Lights blocked out the stars.

I would know him anywhere, she'd said. But if it wasn't Jay, he'd be dragging a complete stranger into a hell that most people couldn't imagine. Even if he kept It away, It would have plenty of time to ruin this man's life before he could save him.

Just like he couldn't save the actual Jay.

I can’t do this, he thought. 

I  _ have  _ to do this, he thought.

He yanked his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. Meredith’s number was already saved, and it wasn’t too late. Two rings, and she picked up.

“Mrs. Fredrickson?” His tone didn’t give away the way his thoughts raced through his head. “Thank you for your patience. I’ve decided to take your case. No,” he cut her off. “No, you don’t need to pay me in advance-” He jerked. “That’s - that’s far more than my rates - I really don’t need that much - yes I will absolutely let you know once I’ve established a base in the area - _Breathe_ , Mrs. Fredrickson-”

The conversation ended with joyful tears from Meredith, Tim being only too grateful to hang up. He stared at his phone until the screen went black again, heart hurting. What a liar he was. He wasn’t going to find Jay. He was doing this to find Alex.

Once he was in Alabama, it would be easy to confirm the identity of the doppelganger in the photos, without actually speaking to him. Assuming the Operator didn’t sense Tim’s interest and attempt to infect him just to be an asshole. But Alex? That was definitely him. The age, the wear and tear on his body, the stupid fucking glasses - Tim would know him anywhere.

Jay was dead. Alex wasn’t. And it was Alex’s fucking fault Jay was dead, it was Alex that pulled the trigger and Alex that taunted him for not being able to save him. It was Alex who Tim saw in his nightmares even now, shooting Jay, over and over. The more he thought about it, the more his blood burned. How could Alex live knowing what he’d done? What right did Alex have to live when Jay didn’t?

Meredith had forgiven Alex. Tim wasn’t ready to.

Tim took a deep breath, calming his fury. He’d deal with that when the time came. Right now, he had to drive. He had a long way to go back to Alabama.

… He hadn’t really thought about that. That doing this meant going back to Alabama. Of course he knew what it meant to take this case. He had to go back to Alabama to do it. But once he left Alabama, he swore he’d never go back, no matter what happened. Even if the world ended, he’d never return. It was there, Rosswood was there, the memories that stood intact, buried forever in the walls of the buildings they’d visited, were there.

The Operator was stronger in Alabama than anywhere else in the world, far as Tim could tell. It seemed centered in Rosswood. Within that state, It could seemingly do anything. Would his gift, his ability to repel it, work within the state borders? What if he couldn’t protect anyone there - including himself?

He could be walking into a trap.

But Jay… 

Leaning back on the cushion behind him, Tim closed his eyes.

“My love had limits,” Meredith said.

“What do you mean?” Tim had asked.

Meredith took a breath, and her eyes, so much like Jay’s, met Tim’s.

“Jay was - is gay,” she said. “We knew it at the time, but we didn’t want to believe it. We were wealthy people, we thought we were Christians, we had standards… We thought he was going through a college phase, the kind a lot of young adults go through when they’re free from their parents. But looking back…” She shook her head. “I was wrong. What I did, what I believed, it was wrong. I want to apologize to him for it, if I can. If he’ll let me.”

_ Jay is gay. _ The words hit hard as a punch to the chest. Pieces of the past he hadn’t known were out of place lined up. Little things Jay did, little looks, little words, little winces and cringes and pained expressions at the things people said or did. Things he hadn’t even thought of made sense in a way that could’ve knocked him over. How Tim kept his cool after that, he couldn’t remember. How he kept from crying, he didn’t know.

Jay is… was gay. Of course he kept that a secret from everyone, they lived in fucking Alabama. Things had improved in the past ten years, but back then, to be openly gay was to have a target on your back, for ridicule if not violence. Their college campus didn’t even allow a LGBT club, or a gay-straight alliance. It just wasn’t done. If Jay had been alive now, he would’ve thrived the way he was always supposed to.

Jay. Alive. Happy. Living in another state. Dating another man, someone other than Tim.

Had Jay felt the way for Tim, the way Tim felt for his ghost? The memories of a man he lost too soon burned strong through his life, in a way Tim for years felt he shouldn’t. Homophobia nothing, he hadn’t known Jay for very long. Was it right to feel that way for him? Did he really love Jay, or did he love the man he put together from his memories and pain? He didn’t have any answers. He tried to keep up with cases so he didn’t think about it but it looked like he wasn’t going to have a choice anymore.

Something chattered in the back of his mind, an anxious, angry, wordless voice. Tim took a deep breath, then another. He wasn’t going to think about this. This was going back in the box until he could process it. There was a long way to go from here, and the road wouldn’t be as smooth as the pavement he normally drove on.

Buckle up, he told himself as he stood and moved for the driver’s seat. This is only going to get harder from here.

\---

And in the wooden seat he swayed, swayed from side to side, the tumbling words dying from his lips. The man groaned, his eyes closed behind the blindfold. He was alone in this room, no windows, one door, a chair, a table, a laptop, a microphone, himself.

He swayed, he swayed, and in the electronic silence the little tings of the assembled viewers in their little box rang out sweet as bells. It meant nothing to him, what they said, what they did, what they believed. It was enough to serve.

The man let out a moan, his voice hoarse, his lips dry and cracked. The strings were cut, the God had pulled away. Now he was alone, alone in this room with the wooden walls and floor, his breathing echoing, the light above buzzing and flickering. Where are you God? Why did you leave me? Have I done something wrong? Have I displeased you?

And like a light pouring from an open door in his mind--

Euphoria. A joy unlike anything he’d ever tasted, an endless rush of wind that swept him from his thoughts. Joy, relief, pride, and the sweet undercurrent of plans that stretched millennia and into realms that his human mind would never understand. It was God, speaking to him, letting him feel Its emotions, letting him taste the infinity of Its existence. In this moment, he could feel Heaven wrapping warm tendrils around his robed body, carrying his soul free, just for this moment.

No rapture would ever be this wonderful.

Blood poured from his closed eyes, his nose and ears, dripping onto his folded hands, onto the folding table. But there was no pain. There was only joy. His God felt joy.

He let the words fall from his lips, even though he did not understand.

“He’s coming.”

And a darkness swept over him, the joy lulling him into the night. The Neophyte fell from his chair onto the cold floor, unconscious and unaware of the shockwaves now shooting through his audience.


	4. Chapter 4

Click the link. Let the page load, the old laptop whirring as it opened. A YouTube video, like so many others. Opening shot, an abandoned building in the middle of the night, muffled voices talking.

Shrieking, screaming. The camera lowered as the one holding it ducks for cover. Four voices yelling at once. Suddenly, laughter. Relieved laughter.

"Fucking bats!" A man called out. The camera raising, focusing on the dark shapes fluttering out the window.

"We need to be careful," a woman said, voice light-hearted. "Those things carry rabies."

Laughter breaking through the group again, a logo of a camera appearing on the screen.

He paused the video and glanced down at the title. "OUR GREATEST HITS, VOLUME ONE." 

He sent a text to his friend.

**Phoenix** : who are these assholes?

The reply was immediate.

**Skully** : they're  _ my _ assholes. College kids I made friends with on Twitter. Really cool. I don't remember being that cool when I was twenty.

He grunted aloud. Lucky him, remembering  _ anything  _ about his twenties. Not everyone was so fortunate.

**Skully** : They’re part of the MH fandom. They actually live in Alabama and were able to track down some of the locations in the videos.

He rolled his eyes.

**Phoenix** : Find any bodies?

**Skully** : Just blood.

He shuddered, pulling his hooded jacket closer to his body.

**Phoenix** : Cool. Morbid, but cool.

He was such a liar.

**Skully** : Anyway, not what I was sending them to you about. They just made a new video today and I think you might be interested in it

He grimaced.

**Phoenix** : This is about your crazy boyfriend, isn’t it?

**Skully** : He’s not my boyfriend!! I don’t know him!!!

**Skully** : And you know my partner doesn't share.

**Phoenix** : But it’s still about him. The prophet guy.

**Skully** : … Yeah. But you should still watch this! I think you’ll find it interesting

He leaned back against the wall and huffed.

**Phoenix** : Why?

**Skully** : … the kids talk about Tim, alright?

**Skully** : They talk about him  _ a lot _ .

His fingers hesitated over the keys. He lingered, reading the words again and again. Tim…?

**Phoenix** : Fine.

**Phoenix** : Send me the video.

The video, almost thirty minutes long, took its sweet time to load. First thing on screen was the same logo as before, a camera with a generic full face mask behind it. The name of the channel followed, MH Unlocked. He shook his head.

The name faded out, replaced by three people on a couch. Two women, one man. A second man sat on top of an end table on the right side of the couch. The lamp that probably belonged in that spot sat on the floor at his dangling feet.

The woman on the left, a bushy haired brunette with deep tan skin, a high ponytail and golden brown eyes, gave the camera a grin.

"Hey investigators!" She waved. "We're back with another video."

"And this one's a doozy," the woman beside her said, raising her mug, which proudly bore a pride flag. If he had to guess, it was the lesbian one. Her hair was dyed orange, peachy skin flushed by makeup or a light sunburn, it was hard to tell.

"Before we start," the first woman said, "be sure to leave a like and give us your thoughts and theories in the comments! I promise, we read all of them."

"Eventually," said the man on the end table with a grin. He was the palest white guy ever, with curly black hair, glasses, and about a thousand freckles on his face. The man next to him gave him a shove, and the first man burst into laughter. 

The other man, with skin several shades darker than the brunette and a suit far too good looking for this kind of environment, rolled his eyes. He waved a hand, with a silver ring on his index finger, at the camera.

"You already know us," he said. "I'm Mix."

"I'm Holly!" The brunette on the other end said.

"I'm Wren," the orange haired woman said.

"And I'm Steve!" The freckled man grinned wide, his green eyes practically glowing with excitement. "We've got a big story for you guys today."

"Oh, very big," Wren said, before taking a drink from her mug.

"Big like the worst headache you've ever had," Mix said with a smiling roll of his eyes. Wren smacked him on the shoulder without looking away from her drink.

"So." Holly reached up from the floor and pulled up a laptop. The brand logo was covered up with a pineapple sticker. Her eyes scanned the screen as she fiddled with the touchpad, Wren leaning over to see what she was doing.

"Last night," Holly said. "Something weird happened over on the Neophyte_Calling YouTube channel."

"Weirder than normal," Wren said.

"Yeah," Holly said. She glanced over towards Steve, who swiped at the screen of his phone. He looked up.

"We'd show the footage but people don’t seem to like when we do that," Steve said. "Something something spreading the sickness." He shrugged with a smile. "But we've all watched it and we can give you a play by play of what happened."

"It might not seem that dramatic," Wren said, "but the implications are pretty intense."

"I'll say," Mix said. 

"Last night, at around ten pm," Holly started, "in the middle of his usual stream, the Neophyte went quiet. The way he does when whatever he's supposedly channeling is trying to talk through him. After about thirty seconds of silence, he started bleeding onto the table from his head, which remember, is mostly off screen. He said, "he's coming," and fell over as the screen glitched out. For another hour there was complete silence before the stream randomly ended."

"Weird shit," Steve said.

Holly nodded. "Very weird shit - but in character for him."

"Now, for those of you that don't know who the Neophyte is," Mix said, "he's the guy you see people calling 'the Prophet' in this fandom. Talks like a drug addict on a high, but many people believe there are secret messages in his words that can be decoded. They say those messages predict the future."

"Not everyone believes this," Holly said.

"I don't," Steve said, hunched over and watching his friends. "But there's definitely something funny-weird about the guy. Very… uncanny valley."

"Sometimes, unprompted, he'll stop talking and do this creepy voice." Holly cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, she lowered her voice, taking on an odd pitch to her words. "Grains of sand in the hourglass of time. Your existence is irrelevant." She shuddered, and let her voice go back to normal. "Something like that."

"That's an awful impression but it gets the job done," Mix said.

"You try doing one better," Holly said.

"The one thing all of these coherent messages have in common," Wren said, "is that they're all addressed to the same person. Someone called Tim."

Steve nodded. "And you can guess who most people think that 'Tim' is."

"It's been ten years since Marble Hornets ended," Mix said. "But it would make sense if it were Tim Wright the Neophyte was talking to. He was the only survivor, after all."

"But that would imply that Tim is watching the Neophyte streams," Wren said.

"And if he's watching the streams, he could be aware of us, too," Holly said.

The four went quiet. Mix looked at the floor. Steve traded a look of discomfort with Holly. Wren took a sip of her mug. She pulled it away from her lips with a sigh.

"If he does know about us," Wren said, "why not come forward and tell his side of the story? He could change the whole game by revealing himself."

"Probably because he's a fucking murderer," Steve said. Mix glared at him, but Steve only shrugged. "You know I'm right!"

"He did kill two people," Holly said, looking at her laptop. "Just because Kralie killed Jay doesn't make what Tim did right."

"But what other choice did he have?" Mix said. "Alex wouldn't have stopped trying to kill Tim. One of them needed to die."

"That doesn't matter to the legal system," Holly said.

"We're getting off topic," Wren said, raising a hand. "It doesn't matter if the Neophyte was talking about Tim from Marble Hornets or not. What matters is that someone is going somewhere and that's apparently good news for the Neophyte or whatever he's channeling."

"You can say the Operator, it's okay," Steve said.

Holly glared at him from over Wren's head.

"It does matter, though, if he's talking about Tim in particular," Mix said. "What if Tim is heading back to Alabama? Maybe he left after the end of the series."

"It's possible," Holly said, "but that's pure speculation. We don't know that."

"Isn't speculation all we do?" Steve said, swinging his legs gently. "Come on, let's give the audience something to chew on. What do you guys think the Neophyte was talking about? The crazier the theory, the better."

Mix frowned. "Well…"

With a shake of his head, the viewer closed the tab. He'd seen enough. Enough to make his eyes burn and hands shake. He took a deep breath, and shuddered, pulling his jacket around himself. It was a warm day beyond the safe confines of this abandoned house, but that didn't stop the chills shooting through him.

Was he afraid? Or was he angry? 

With a growl he thrust the laptop away from him and reached for his sketchbook. The pen he'd been using before still rested inside. Forcing his thoughts away from the video, he focused everything in his mind onto his art.

He wasn't a great artist, but his memory was good, and with nothing else to do most days, his skill was getting better. With proper art tools, he could've even gotten great at it. But there was no need for greatness right now. Art was supposed to be healing, and that more than anything was what he needed.

In his mind he captured the image, something he'd seen so many times before. Grinding his teeth, he let the image flow onto the page once more. His favorite thing to draw, the one thing that really made him smile.

Losing track of time was part of the appeal. With the light from his laptop, he could see the whole page, or at least enough of it to work. The ink bled into the paper, the lines assembling into a rough image that soon became a face. He could see it so well in his mind's eye. As if the man he pictured was right in front of him. But he wasn't. And if the man knew what was good for him, he'd stay that way.

The sound of a new message on Discord got his attention. He glanced at the time instead. An hour, flown by, his mind lost in an ink-based daydream. Exhaling hard, he looked back at the art on the page. It wasn't finished. It would probably never be finished. But as it was… it was perfect.

Tim Wright made a very good model, unaware of that as he was.

Running his hand over the page, feeling the indents where his pen dug deep into the paper, he shook his head, and smiled.

"Better not be coming back, Tim," the man, the Maniac, said. "If you do… I'll have to kill you.'


End file.
